


Coffee and Wontons

by skylarkblue



Category: Batgirl (Comics), Batman (Comics), Batman - All Media Types, Red Robin (Comics)
Genre: Family Bonding, Gen, Light Angst, Studying
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-18
Updated: 2021-03-18
Packaged: 2021-03-27 02:47:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/30115989
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skylarkblue/pseuds/skylarkblue
Summary: Tim's up late working on a case when some unexpected visitors drop in. Jason and Stephanie need his help, and his wi-fi.
Relationships: Stephanie Brown & Jason Todd, Tim Drake & Jason Todd
Comments: 5
Kudos: 89





	Coffee and Wontons

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thank you as always to Hollie47, my beta. I couldn't write anything without you.

The sound of the clock ticking away behind him was almost enough to lull Tim to sleep, but he kept his eyes stubbornly open and trained on his laptop screen, determined to get the work he was focused on done and complete and no longer his problem.

He was startled out of his reverie by the sound of a knock at the door. Tim looked up, blinking, trying to clear his head. The knocking came again, more insistent this time, and he pushed his chair back from the desk and made his way over to the door, looking at the time. It was late. Early for a vigilante - this was the time he’d usually start his patrol. But for a house call, it was late.

When he opened the door, on the other side was a five-foot-five blonde clad in black tights and a purple sweater holding a cardboard cup holder with three steaming cups of coffee inside.

“Hey,” Steph said, holding out the coffees so he could take one. “I come bearing gifts.”

“Come in,” Tim replied, gratefully accepting the large black coffee closest to him. It helpfully had his name scrawled across it in marker, so he knew it was his, and one sip told him that Steph had gotten his order exactly right. He eyed off the other two coffees in the tray. “I know one of those is for you, but who-”

“Hey, Replacement,” came a yell from across the apartment. Steph followed Tim inside as he walked over to the window. Jason was standing on the other side, leaning down to yell through the opening. Tim leaned over and pushed the window open, lifting it enough that Jason could clamber through. “Thanks,” he said, swinging his legs inside, a backpack sitting in his lap. “I brought food.”

“What did you bring?” Tim asked, his curiosity piqued. Jason gave him a crooked grin, closing the window behind him.

“Wontons,” he replied, digging a couple of small paper bags out of his backpack. They were hot to the touch, filled to the brim with little deep-fried dumplings, and Tim appreciatively took a bag, handing one back to Stephanie and leaving the third for Jason.

“Where’d you get wontons at this hour?” Tim asked, popping one into his mouth. It was still scorching hot, so he chewed quickly, moving his tongue around to avoid being scalded, exhaling through his nose.

“Ella’s,” Jason replied, untwisting his paper bag and reaching inside for a wonton, leaving his backpack on the floor by the couch. “She was closing up, so she let me have what they had left from an order that didn’t get picked up.”

“Someone ordered three bags of wontons and didn’t pick them up?” Tim asked, suspicious. Stephanie elbowed him in the side, shooting him a look. She flopped down on his couch and looked curiously at his laptop screen, her eyes scanning the information quickly.

“Where’s my coffee?” Jason asked. Stephanie handed it to him wordlessly, still reading the laptop screen. Tim felt himself growing exasperated, so he shoved another wonton in his mouth, this time chewing slowly. They’d cooled off just enough to eat.

“Why are the two of you here, anyway?” Tim asked, settling on the couch between Jason and Stephanie. The two of them shared a look, and Stephanie said, “We needed to use your Wi-Fi.”

“Don’t you have your own internet?” Tim took a sip of his coffee.

“Jason’s went down and mine is spotty at best,” Steph replied. “You were the obvious choice.”

“You couldn’t go to the manor?” Tim looked between them. Jason was looking at the hardwood floors, chewing his wontons furiously, coffee clutched in his hands. He took a sip of it, cupping it close, as though he was trying to get the warmth straight out of the cup.

“No, we couldn’t,” Steph replied, shoving a wonton into her mouth and crunching it. “Jason, get your books out.”

Jason shot her a look, but he obliged, pulling a couple of textbooks out of his backpack. He stacked them on the coffee table beside Tim’s laptop, pulling out a folder of loose leaf paper and a pen, a couple of highlighters, and finally, his phone. He pulled out his earphones and shoved them in, pulling up a YouTube video and watching it silently, taking breaks only to sip from his coffee. Tim shrugged and went back to the work he’d been doing, figuring it was better not to ask, but finally, curiosity got the better of him.

“What’s he doing?” Tim asked Steph, who’d finished her wontons and was now sipping happily at her too-sweet coffee.

“Studying,” Steph replied. Jason pulled out his earphones and tossed the phone onto the pile of textbooks with a huff.

“Steph, I don’t get it.”

“What don’t you get?” Steph asked, setting her coffee aside and leaning over Tim to look at the notes Jason had scrawled while watching the video.

“All of it,” Jason snapped. He shoved his pen behind his ear and rubbed his forehead, closing his eyes. “I’m too-”

“Jason Peter Todd, if you say stupid, I’ll punch you into next week,” Steph gave him a sharp look.

“What’s going on?” Tim asked, feeling kind of stupid himself. Jason never told him anything, but it wasn’t like Steph to leave him out of the loop, especially if she was stealing his internet to do it.

Jason looked up, like he’d just remembered Tim was there. He mumbled something under his breath, still rubbing his forehead, and forced himself to meet Tim’s eyes.

“What was that?” Tim asked.

“Can you keep a secret?” Jason asked, clearer this time.

“Yeah, of course,” Tim replied, glancing over to Stephanie. Her face gave nothing away, and she was paying more attention to her phone than to him.

“I’m taking these classes...to get my high school diploma.” Jason looked pained to admit this out loud to anyone, but perhaps especially Tim. “Steph is tutoring me.”

“That’s really wonderful, Jason,” Tim said after a moment of silence. “Really. I’m, um - I’m proud of you.”

“Shut it, Replacement,” Jason said, and any buddy-buddy feelings Tim might’ve been getting vanished like Jason had just slammed a door in his face. Jason huffed again, looking down at the page of notes, and sighed. “Sorry. I’m not mad at you. I’m frustrated with myself.”

“What are you having trouble with?” Tim asked, leaning over.

Jason showed him a page of calculations that Tim recognised immediately. It was twelfth grade algebra, and it wasn’t easy, either. Jason had scribbled his working out in the margins, crossed out whole questions, and, in a frustrated scrawl, just left three question marks under one question. Steph was looking at him sympathetically, tucking her phone away.

“Did you watch the video?” she asked. Jason nodded.

“What video?” Tim looked between them.

“They send us these videos with every module that are meant to explain how to do it.” Jason unlocked his phone and hit play on the video he already had pulled up, unplugging his earphones so Tim could hear the lecturer drone about integers and quadratic functions. He listened for a moment with a frown, then reached forward and paused it.

“That’s utterly useless,” Tim said.

“Tell me about it,” Jason groaned, dumping his phone on the table. He picked up his math textbook and flicked it open to one of the chapters in the middle, showing Tim the page. “This is a little easier to understand, but it’s just not clicking for me.”

“And algebra wasn’t one of my strong points,” Steph chimed in. “I’ve tried watching the video myself, and I think I get it, but every time I check the answers in the back of the book, I’m wrong.”

“I can help,” Tim said, pulling the textbook closer. “I think. It’s been a few years since I did this, but I was pretty good at it.”

He started doing one of the equations on the blank sheet of paper Jason handed him, scribbling down numbers and letters in quick succession. He did most of the working out in his head, so not all of it ended up on the paper, but when he flicked to the back of the textbook to check the answer, he was pleased to find it was correct. Jason was watching closely, like he could parse it out just from seeing Tim do it, but he still looked just as hopelessly lost when Tim was done.

Right, Tim thought. How was he going to explain this to Jason.

“Eat your wontons,” he said instead. “Drink your coffee. You need fuel if we’re going to teach you this.”

“I have an exam tomorrow afternoon,” Jason replied.

“Better finish that coffee, then,” Steph laughed. She took one of Jason’s textbooks and flicked it open, leaning back against the armrest of the couch to read the chapter in his history textbook on the Revolutionary War. It was the next topic they were covering, and it was the one that had interested her the least in high school.

Jason and Tim were shoulder-to-shoulder as they leaned over the pages of work. Jason poured over the textbook, willing it to make sense, but the more he read the more the numbers seemed to just swim in front of his eyes and twist themselves around into ways he couldn’t understand. Here’s the thing - Jason wasn’t bad at math. He was great with money, with percentages and long term investments, and he wasn’t half bad at geometry either, meeting many of its real world applications every day when he leapt across rooftops and had to do quick mental calculations to figure if he could close a gap in time. None of that bothered him. But this was something else entirely.

“I promise I’m not stupid,” Jason said quietly, feeling surprisingly vulnerable. It was something he’d expressed to Steph before, and she’d always reassured him, defended him from his own negative self-talk. This time, Steph didn’t say anything, just shook her head and returned to the textbook. She was letting Tim handle this one.

“Dude, I know you’re not stupid.” Of course Tim knew Jason wasn’t stupid. He’d seen the files in the Cave. “What are you struggling with?”

Jason was quiet for a few moments, and he got this hard look on his face, like he was going to shut down and snap for Tim to leave him alone. But eventually his shoulders sagged, and he wiped his brow, before muttering “I just. Don’t understand it any more.”

Tim stayed quiet, waiting for him to elaborate. Steph was sitting with her knees tucked up to her chest, and she reached across Tim to take Jason’s hand, rubbing soothing circles on the back of his palm with her thumb. She’d heard this before, but she thought it was important for Jason to open up to his brother.

“I knew how to do all of this stuff when I was a kid,” Jason said. “When I was fifteen, I was on top of all my classes. I got it. It didn’t come easy to me, but I always got there in the end. But since...since I came out of the Pit, it’s like some of it just isn’t there any more. No matter how hard I try, it’s like all those hits to my head knocked it loose, and I’m just...not smart any more.”

Tim considered him for a moment. He had read somewhere that trauma could have this kind of effect on a person’s brain, could leave them grasping for things they had once known, and Jason had been through some horrifying things. Coupled with not using those skills for what had to be coming on eight or nine years now, it was no wonder Jason was struggling.

“We’re going to work this out together,” Tim said. Steph leaned back into the couch and sipped her coffee, watching curiously as Tim pulled out a fresh sheet of paper and a pen. He absentmindedly closed his laptop, like it had just occurred to him it was still open, and scooched closer to Jason.

He handed Jason the pen and directed him to copy a problem out of the textbook.

“Let’s start with the easiest and work our way through. You need a solid foundation to start with.”

“The exam’s tomorrow,” Jason stressed.

“Just trust me, Jason.” Tim watched him copy down the problem. “We can do this together.”

They worked on the problems together, Tim quick to pick up where Jason was going wrong, quicker still to stop him before he threw his work down in frustration. They got through the first problem, and the second, and the third, until within an hour and a bit they had a full page of correct mathematical problems. Jason set his pen down with a sigh while Tim went through and checked the answers against the back of the book. Behind them, Steph had taken up most of the couch at some point after they’d slid onto the floor, and she was snoring softly, her coffee apparently not enough to keep her awake, or perhaps it was the sense of safety that came from being with Jason and Tim that allowed her to nod off with them.

“Jason, you did it!” Tim exclaimed, thrusting the page back to Jason. “You got them all right!”

“You did most of the work,” Jason said, ducking his head, but there was the hint of a smile tugging up at his lips.

“I think you’re going to pass that exam,” Tim replied, setting the textbook aside and yawning. “Man, this takes me back to those late night cram sessions in the Cave.”

“You did that too?” Jason asked, surprised. “Before every test I’d be down there studying, waiting for Bruce to come home and yell at me to go to bed.”

A grin spread across Tim’s face, and he and Jason shared an uneasy smile, surprised to find they had something in common, though it was something that was honestly just a part of being Robin. But it wasn’t often they could discuss being Robin without bringing up awful memories, so Tim was grateful for this moment with his brother.

“You should head to bed,” Jason said, looking up at the time and wincing. “I should be in bed, too. I’ll take Steph home.”

“Don’t worry about Steph,” Tim said, standing and cracking his neck as he got up off the floor. “She can crash here. I don’t mind.”

The two of them glanced to Steph, who was open-mouthed and drooling, snoring softly against the back of the couch. Jason gave her a small smile as he gathered his things, stuffing them all into the backpack.

“Goodnight Steph,” he said quietly. And then, to Tim, “Goodnight, Replacement.”

“Goodnight, Jason.” Tim grabbed a soft blanket from the hallway cupboard to throw over Steph’s sleeping form. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Sure,” Jason replied. He hesitated by the window, and then said, “Thanks for helping me study tonight, Tim. It...thanks.”

Tim nodded, and Jason slipped away into the night, leaving him with just three empty coffee cups and a sleeping vigilante for company.

When Tim woke the next morning, Stephanie was gone, but his coffeemaker was full of fresh coffee, and there was a sticky note on his fridge that said  _ Thanks for last night! _

Tim pulled down a mug and poured himself a cup of caffeinated goodness, taking a long sip and refilling the cup. He glanced at the time - Jason’s exam had started an hour ago - and busied himself by settling back on the couch with his laptop and the work he’d abandoned the night before. It was crime related, a spreadsheet of pick ups and drop offs he’d noticed down in Crime Alley over the past four months. Some of the smaller players in Gotham seemed to be making moves to something bigger, and he was going to get to the bottom of it, leave the big players to Bruce and Damian for now.

He inputted further data into the spreadsheet, sipping at his coffee until it went cold, and so absorbed in the work he almost didn’t notice the first clatter of rocks upon his lounge room window. He definitely noticed the second, though.

“I’m coming,” he grumbled, wondering who had taken it upon themselves to do this and not just, say, walk up and knock on the door. He opened the window and leaned outside, looking down the two storeys to the street. It was Jason, and he was clutching a piece of paper triumphantly over his head.

“I passed!” He yelled up at Tim, waving the paper above his head. “I got a B!”

“Hey!” Tim called out, delighted. “Good work, man!”

“Thank you!” Jason yelled back, bringing his arms down, the grin wide on his face. It made him look younger, less scarred. Jason shuffled his feet on the pavement for a moment, like he wasn’t sure what to do.

“Do you want to come up?” Tim asked, leaning further out the window. “I could use some help on this case.”

“Uh,” Jason hesitated, and then he shrugged, nodding. “Sure. Let me park my bike round the back.”

Jason climbed onto a sleek black motorbike that looked suspiciously like it had come out of Bruce’s garage and sped off around the corner. Tim waited inside, flicking on the coffeemaker to make some fresh coffee before Jason got upstairs. The room filled with the rich aroma of brewing coffee, and Tim grinned to himself, pleased.

Jason poked his head around the door and let himself in, grabbing himself a mug and pouring a cup. He added sugar, stirring it in slowly, and then joined Tim over on the couch, where they’d stayed up studying the night before. Tim relished this moment of fragile repair between him and Jason, that Jason trusted him, that they could now work together without it causing a fight or drama. He made a silent note to himself to thank Stephanie next time he saw her.


End file.
